gog3
CONTINUED
Legalism sees all men under law and interprets the Christian life as under law, contrary to Romans 6:14:
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14).
In chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul discusses the Christian’s relationship to the law. This discussion actually began with the statement in Rom. 6:14 (“you are not under law, but under grace.”) which raised the question in Rom. 6:15 (“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”) and its answer in Rom. 6:16 through 6:23. Then Paul says that the Christian is not under law because he has died with Christ to the law.
“7:4 Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit to God …. 7:6 But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom. 7:4, 6).
And then Paul discusses the experience of the one under law. The Christian life depicted in Romans 7:7-24 is an abnormal (or subnormal) Christian life; there is no mention of the Holy Spirit in Rom. 7:7-24; the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit. Such defeat and despair are not characteristic of the normal Christian life depicted in Romans 8 and elsewhere in the New Testament.
For the Christian to be under law is for him to be under the dominion of the law and to be a slave of the law ( Rom. 7:25b); this slavery to the law would be equivalent to an idolatry of the law which is basically what legalism is. The Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism when he believes the legalistic teaching that a Christian’s relationship to God depends upon his submission to the law and he has accepted the legalistic claim that the law is the way to be delivered from the dominion of sin. But the law does not deliver from the dominion and slavery of sin, but rather the passions of sin are aroused or energized by the law.
“While we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.”
(Rom. 7:5 ERS)
The law is not thereby sin ( Rom. 7:7), but sin finding opportunity in the commandment “Thou shalt not covet” works all kinds of covetousness ( Rom. 7:7-8). The law, instead of delivering from the dominion of sin, leads instead to the enslavement to sin ( Rom. 7:14, 25b). Instead of leading to life, as legalism promises, the commandment leads to death ( Rom. 7:10). Sin uses the commandment as an opportunity to come alive or active ( Rom. 7:9, 11). The man under law wants to do what is right, but he cannot do it ( Rom. 7:18). Thus legalism leads to the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be ( Rom. 7:19). The end is defeat and despair.
“7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin.
I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 7:8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; 7:10 and the very commandment which was for life I found to be death to me. 7:11 For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. 7:13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. 7:15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 7:16 Now if I do what I do not want,
I agree that the law is good. 7:17 So then it is not longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God
according to the inner man,” 7:23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in my members. 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body this death?
7:25a Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” (Rom. 7:7-25a ERS)
The man in Romans 7:7-24 is the Christian under law. This is not where the Christian should be — he is not under law ( Rom. 6:14) because he is dead to the law ( Rom. 7:4, 6). The Christian life depicted in Romans 7 is an abnormal (or subnormal) Christian life; there is no mention of the Holy Spirit in Rom. 7:7-24; the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit. Such defeat and despair are not characteristic of the normal Christian life depicted in Romans 8 and elsewhere in the New Testament.
Most Reformed theologians interpreted chapter 7 of Romans as the normal Christian life. And they said that because the Christian after conversion still has a sinful nature, he will have an unending struggle with indwelling sin. His sinful nature (which is subject to sin) is in constant warfare with his new nature (which is subject to God’s law). Even though he wants to keep God’s law, he finds himself being compelled by his sinful nature to do the very things he hates. Although justified (declared righteous through the imputed merits or righteousness of Christ) and thus assured of salvation, there is still no deliverance from his sinful nature until he dies. He will finally be delivered from his sinful nature when he will be raised from the dead in the last day with an incorruptible body completely free from the presence of the sinful nature. Thus most Reformed theologians interpreted the 7th chapter of Romans as the normal Christian life.
Although most Reformed Christian theologians interpet this struggle of Romans chapter 7 as the normal Christian life, some other Reformed theologians teach the suppression of the works of the flesh (sinful nature) by the power of the Holy Spirit as Spirit-empowered law-keeping. Other Christian theologians reject this interpretation of the Romans 7 as the normal Christian experience and teach a second work of grace that eradicates the sinful nature from the Christian, delivering him from the Romans 7 experience. But in either case the Christian is still left under the law as a rule and standard of life and the “walk in the Spirit” is interpreted as nothing more than Spirit-empowered law-keeping. According to this teaching, the Holy Spirit is given to the Christian to empower him to keep the law and to make him morally perfect, conforming to the divine standard given in the law. This legalistic interpretation of the Christian life is the source of many of the psychological problems that Christians have today. Legalism has either of two psychological effects on the person in bondage to the law. He becomes either self-righteous or afflicted with a guilt complex.
1. This self-righteousness is a special form of pride which is the chief by-product of idolatry (Psa. 40:4). It is most often connected with the externalization and detailed extensions of the law. It expresses itself in the attitude of the Pharisees who keep the minutiae of the law but overlook the spirit of the law (Matt. 15:1-19). Also the legalist is not only self-righteous but sits in judgment on others who do not conform to the law and has little place for mercy. He becomes like the god he acknowledges and worships — the law. When he is shown mercy, he does not in turn show mercy to those in his debt (Matt. 18:23-35).
2. The other psychological effect of legalism is a guilt complex. If the legalist does not become self-righteous, then he usually becomes afflicted with a guilt complex. This psychological effect is most often connected with the quantitization of the law. Since he cannot know the precise amount of merit attached to each good deed or how much he has acquired, a legalist has no certainty. In addition, no matter how well he has lived, it is always possible for him to slip into a terrible sin whose demerit will outweigh all his merit. As a result of this uncertainty the legalist is led to look constantly within himself to see whether he measures up to the divine standard, the law, which he has chosen as his ultimate criterion. If he believes himself constantly falling short of this standard, he will develop a guilt complex.
This second psychological effect of legalism is the most common among Christians who have been misled into legalism. Because of the intense desire placed by God in the believer to please God, the Christian entrapped in legalism internalizes the law, applying it not only to external actions but to every thought and motive as well as to every word and deed. Because of the sin resulting from legalism (legalism itself is sin — the sin of idolatry of the law), the guilt accompanying this sin is added to all the imagined guilt of the evil thoughts and motives resulting from close, detailed introspection. The result is often a very intense guilt complex bordering on the neurotic. Because of the widespread legalistic teaching in Christian churches, it is not surprising that so many Christians are afflicted with such guilt complexes.
The moral and ethical result of legalism is the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be. Since man falls short of the ideal of moral perfection, the standard of righteousness, the law, he is faced with the disparity between the real and the ideal self, between what he is and what he ought to be. The Christian statement of this dilemma is given classic expression by the Apostle Paul in his famous analysis of the experience of the man under law in Romans chapter 7 —
“The good that I would, I do not. And the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Rom. 7:19)
This predicament has led the legalistic theologians to conclude that sin is intrinic to human nature. Rabbinic Judaism, for example, developed the theory of the evil nature or “yetzer hara.” Augustine used the doctrine of original sin (originale peccatum) or inherited inborn sinful nature to explain why men always fall short of the divine standard. But this doctrinal expedient of the sinful nature is unnecessary since the moral dilemma can be explained by the fact that a false god always betrays its worshippers into the very opposite of what they expected from the false god (Isa. 44:9, 10; 45:16, 17, 20, 21). The man under law, who practically deifies the law ( Rom. 7:22, 25b) and looks to it to save him from sin and give him life ( Rom. 7:10), finds that the law cannot save him, but on the contrary he discovers that the law arouses sin and becomes the opportunity for sin which results in death ( Rom. 7:5, 8-11).
And not only that, but also since death (primarily spiritual death) leads to sin ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), the man under law is practically in spiritual death (the law separates him from God), and sin is the result of that death. This is what the Apostle Paul concludes at the end of his discussion of the legalistic struggle in Romans 7.
“7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, 7:23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” (Rom. 7:21-23 ERS)
There are three laws presented here in this passage.
1. The first law is the law of sin (verse 21). Since sin is not what the man under law wants to do, he concludes that sin must dwell in the members of his body rather than in his real inner self ( Rom. 7:17-20).
2. The second law is the law of God (verse 22) which the man under law delights in, which he agrees with his mind is right, good and holy ( Rom. 7:12, 16), the law of the mind.
3. The third law is the “another law” (heteros — another of a different kind; compare this word with allos — another of the same kind) — a law different from the first two laws but warring against the law of the mind — the law of God — and bringing the man under law into captivity to the law of sin. What is this third law? In the next verse we get a clue.
“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24)
The law of death is this third law, this other law. And this is confirmed in Romans 8:2 which says,
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.”
The law of death brings the man under law into captivity to the law of sin. Death leads to sin; all have sinned because of death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS).
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” (I Cor. 15:55).
No sinful nature is necessary to explain the moral delimma; the man under law sins because he is spiritually dead; the law separates him from God. For the Christian to place himself under the law is practically like placing himself in spiritual death; it has the same results — sin. For the Christian to be under law, the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit; the law thus separates the Christian from God. Romans chapter 7 is not the normal Christian life; it is the struggle of the man under law, entrapped in the bondage of legalism. And if the Christian falls into this legalism, there is deliverance. “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 7:25a).
There are three steps for deliverance from legalism that may be found in Romans 7:25b through 8:4:
“7:25b So then, I myself am a slave to the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.” 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it is weakened through the flesh, God Himself, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, 8:4 in order that the righteous acts of law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (ERS)
Step 1 – The recognition that legalism is the problem (Rom. 7:25b).- “So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am a slave to the law of God, but on the other hand, with my flesh to the law of sin.” ERS To be delivered from legalism one must recognize that he himself is a slave to the law and a slave to the law of sin, that is, that he is under the law and sin has dominion over him ( Rom. 6:14).
- Step 2 – Deliverance from condemnation (Rom. 8:1).
- “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” NAS God delivers from legalism through His word of unconditional love which says that there is no condemnation to those in Christ. This is a word of grace and places the Christian back under grace. Legalism conditions God’s love by our sins. God says that His love is unconditioned by our sins. Therefore God does not condemn us for our failure under the law but delivers us from under law and places us back under grace. For in His love God delivers us from sin and death (Rom. 8:2) and thus from wrath which is condemnation.
- Step 3 – Deliverance from sin and death (Rom. 8:2).
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” NAS Paul here tells his readers that the Spirit of life in Christ has set them free from “the law of sin and [the law] of death.” Paul, like other New Testament writers, uses the Greek word nomos (usually translated “law”) in several different ways.
The following are some of them:
1. The first 5 books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch (Matt. 12:5; Luke 2:23-24; 16:16; 24:44; Rom. 3:21b).
2. The whole Old Testament (Rom.3:19 referring to the passages quoted in Rom.3:10-18 which are not just from the Pentateuch; John 10:34, quoting Psa. 82:6; I Cor. 14:21, quoting Isa. 28:11)
3. The Mosaic covenant that God made with the children of Israel (Exodus 24:1-12; Rom. 2:12; 3:19; 4:13-14; Gal. 3:17-18).
4. The Ten Commandments, the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21; Matt. 5:18), sometimes improperly called the moral law.
5. All the commandments of God, ceremonial as well as the Ten Commandments; all statutes and ordinances of the law of Moses (Luke 2:22; John 7:23).
6. Teaching, instruction, guidance (Rom. 2:17, 18, 20, 23, 26); compare this with the meaning of the Hebrew word Torah which has the same meaning. As such it is that content of God’s revelation (the Word of the Lord, Deut. 5:5; Psa. 119:43, 160) which makes clear man’s relationship to God and to his fellow man. It provides guidance for man’s actions in his relationship to God and to his fellow man.
7. Any commandment regulating conduct ( Rom. 7:7, 8-9).
8. A principle or power of action (Rom. 3:27; 7:21, 23, 25; 8:2).
This last use is the way Paul uses it here in this verse ( Rom. 8:2). The Greeks and the Romans believed that the law had the power to force compliance with the law (Cicero, Laws, II, 8-10). In their view, the law was a principle or power of action which could by its action bring about what the law prescribed; it was not merely a description of or prescription for some action; the law made the action occur. This is the sense in which Paul speaks of “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” and of “the law of sin” and of “the law of death.” These are not merely descriptions of how the Spirit or death or sin acts; they are powers that act and bring about certain actions. Thus the law of the Spirit of life is the power of the Spirit of God acting to make one alive, and thus freeing from the law or power of action of death and of sin. The law of death is power of death acting to make one dead. The law of sin is the power of sin acting to make one sin.
In the next verse ( Rom. 8:3), Paul says that the law of God is unable to make righteous; it does not have that power of action. And, as Paul says in Gal. 3:21, righteousness is not by the law because the law cannot make alive; the law does not have that power action either.
The law or the power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or the power of action of sin and of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ which is deliverance from death. The law is not able to do this; it is through the death of Christ ( Rom. 8:3) who put an end to sin’s reign over us (“condemn sin in the flesh”) by his death for us (Rom. 6:6-10). The result is that the righteous acts of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit ( Rom. 8:4). To walk after the flesh is to try to do the righteous acts of the law by human effort (“the flesh”). The believer must not do it that way. By walking after the Spirit, he will fulfill the righteous acts of the law. He will love God with his heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself. Love fulfills the law.
“13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 13:9 The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in the sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
(Rom. 13:8-10).
The interpretation of Romans 7 as the Christian struggle with the sinful nature is a legalistic misinterpretation. This misinterpretation considers the normal Christian life as under law and the sinful nature as the explanation why the Christian cannot keep the law and has this struggle. The flesh is considered to be the sinful nature.
But the sinful nature is not needed to explain the struggle and defeat in Romans 7; the Christian life cannot be live by the law any more than he can he be saved by the law. The law cannot produce righteousness because it cannot make alive.
“Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” (Gal. 3:21)
Only a real personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit can produce righteousness, that is, the right relationship to God and to his fellow man. The law cannot make alive to God; that is, the law cannot produce a real personal relationship to God of love and trust in God. To try to live the Christian life by the law separates and isolates the Christian from God (spiritual death) and the attempt by human self-effort (the flesh) to live up to standard of the law results in failure and sin. As right and good is the law, God did not give it as a means of salvation nor as the way to live the Christian life by it. So all attempts to do so will fail, as Romans 7 shows. The sinful nature is not the cause of this failure but the wrong use of the law. Romans 7 shows what happens when the law is used wrongly. The solution to this problem is not to try harder, but to abandon this wrong use of the law. And to turn to God’s way of the Christian life; that is, to walk according to Spirit (by faith), and not according to the flesh (human self-effort) ( Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25).
The Protestant Reformers rejected the teaching that grace is given by the sacraments to enable the will of man to earn his salvation by meritorious works and taught that salvation is by grace through faith and that the grace of God regenerated the believer, giving to him a new nature, by which he can do good works, but not to earn salvation and eternal life (Christ had earned this for them by His active obedience), but to show that they are saved and regenerated. The believer can receive by faith the gift of eternal life earned by Christ’s active obedience because the believer has received a new nature which makes it possible for him to believe. According to their teaching, the believer has two natures, a sinful nature and a new nature, and the experience recorded in Romans 7 was interpreted as the struggle between these two natures. This legalistic explanation of salvation and of the Christian life leaves the believer under the law, and under the dominion of sin ( Rom. 6:14). And this legalistic explanation of Romans 7 also leaves the believer under law with no deliverance from this struggle, contrary to the clear teaching of Scirpture that there is deliverance:
“7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body this death? 7:25a I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25a KJV)
John Wesley (1703-1791) in the 18th century recognized that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, and he put forth the teaching that there was a second work of grace (the first work of grace was conversion), which he called entire santification, that would eradicate the sinful nature, cleansing from inbred sin and enabling those experiencing this work of grace to live without conscious or deliberate sin (Christian Perfection). But his explanation of this deliverance as the eradication of the sinful nature assumes that the struggle of Roman 7 is caused by the sinful nature. This assumption is wrong; the cause of the struggle is not the sinful nature, but is being under law. According to Rom. 6:14 (“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.”), sin has dominion (or lordship) over the believer when he is under the law and the deliverance from this dominion of sin is to be under grace. The grace of God, God’s love in action, delivers the believer from the dominion and lordship of sin by placing the believer back under the grace of God. God does this by not condemning the believer who is in Christ Jesus.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1).
Under the law, the law condemns those who sin; the law does not deliver those under the law from the dominion of sin. But God does not condemn them but by grace places them back under grace and delivers them from the dominion of sin (“the law of sin”) and of death (“the law of death”) by the operation of the Spirit (“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”).
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Rom. 8:2).
The law separates the believer who is under law from God; this is practically the same as spiritual death. Thus the believer under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead. For the Christian to place himself under law is like placing oneself in spiritual death; the law has taken the place of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and it has the same results as spiritual death — it produces sin.
Wesley, while recognizing that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, misunderstood that deliverance as an eradication of the sinful nature. He did not recognize that the cause of the Roman 7 experience was being under the law, not the sinful nature. And he did not recognize this cause because his explanation of the need for salvation was legalistic (all men are under the law and have sinned by transgressing that law) as was the explanation of Augustine and of the Prostestant Reformers. And his explanation of salvation was also legalistic: he believed that the passive obedience of Christ’s death paid the penalty of men’s sin (transgression of the law) and the active obedience of Christ’s good works earned for us eternal life which is imputed to our account when we believe. Also his concept of Christian Perfection and Holiness was also a legalistic misinterpretation of the Christian Life as sinless perfection.
The views of Augustine and Calvinism, as well as Welsey’s, totally depersonalize salvation, grace and faith. The Biblical view, on the other hand, is totally personal and dynamic; the grace of God is God’s love in action to bring man into a personal relationship with God Himself and faith is man choosing to enter into that personal relationship. Spiritual and eternal life is this personal relationship between God and man, where the grace of God is God’s side of the relationship and faith is man’s side of the relationship. God initiates the personal relationship and a man must choose to enter into that personal relationship by faith, receiving God’s gift of salvation and trusting God and His love. Salvation is not a monergism, where God does all that is needed to earn salvation, nor is it a synergism, where God’s act of grace enables the will of man to earn salvation. This personal relationship to God has nothing to do with earning something by meritorious works. Neither is the grace of God an enabling of the will of man to do meritorious works, nor is the faith of man a meritorious work. Grace and faith are just the two sides of the personal relationship between God and man; grace is God’s side initiating and sustaining the relationship and faith is man’s side in response to God’s grace.
The Christian life is the continuation of this personal relationship where the believer walks by faith and acts upon the basis of God’s sustaining grace and the personal guidance and empowering of the Holy Spirit. Grace and faith are relational concepts and are not just properties of either God or man. The grace of God is God acting in His love toward man and faith is man choosing to trust God and His love. Because of their underlying legalism, the views of Augustine and the Protestant Reformers, as well as Welsey’s, have obscured and distorted this Biblical view of salvation and of the Christian life.
Legalism is a temptation and an obstacle to the walk in the Spirit by faith. As good and right as the law is ( Rom. 7:10), this law is not man’s highest good, and observing the Ten Commandments is not man’s righteousness. God Himself is man’s highest good, and trust in and love for God is his righteousness. This love fulfills the law ( Rom. 13:8-10), which a legalistic living under the law does not do. Man’s basic problem is not “Are you keeping the law?” but “Which god are you trusting?” Is it the true God or is it a false one? This is not just the problem of the non-Christian and the unbeliever but also the problem of the Christian. Many psychological problems that Christians have are the result of a divided loyalty. They are trying to hang onto the true God and a false god at the same time. This double-mindedness, this divided faith (James 1:7-8) makes a Christian psychologically and morally unstable and hinders his walk with the Lord.
And strange as it may seem, this is the situation behind the Romans 7 kind of experience of many Christians. As we observed above, the experience of Romans 7 is the experience of the man under law. And if a Christian is having this kind of experience, it is because he has placed himself under law which God says he is not under, for he is under grace ( Rom. 6:14). He is attempting to serve two masters at the same time: the law and the Holy Spirit. And this cannot be done (Gal. 5:18). It only creates psychological and moral problems: guilt on the inside and sin and failure on the outside. Being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Christian does not need to walk by the law but by the Spirit. The Christian’s goal is not moral perfection but the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). The Apostle Paul’s question in Galatians 3:3 is particularly relevant and right to the point:
“Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Paul’s obvious answer to this rhetorical question is “No“. For “as you… have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6). By faith they have received Christ, so they walk in Him by faith in Him. This walk is not the striving for moral perfection. Moral perfection is perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law, and is contrary and opposed to the fruit of the Spirit and the righteousness of faith (Gal. 5:19-21). The weakness, if not the error, of most Christian preaching and teaching is that it is an exhortation of the Christian to perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law. Having begun in the Spirit, the Christian is urged to seek moral perfection. The Holy Spirit is brought into this kind of preaching, if at all, as the source of power to enable the Christian to keep the law, to come up to the standard of righteousness in the law. This Spirit-empowered law-keeping is not what Paul means when he speaks of “walking according to the Spirit” ( Rom. 8:4; see also Gal. 5:16, 25). To walk by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law (Gal. 5:18). To walk according to the Spirit is to make all one’s decisions with reference to the Holy Spirit as He personally guides, fills and empowers the believer. The walk in the Spirit is the moment by moment walk of faith and personal trust in the God who personally by His Holy Spirit reveals and communicates Himself along each step of that walk. The “normal” Christian life is this walk according to the Spirit; it is not a legalistic Spirit-empowered law-keeping, but a biblical Spirit-filled law-fulfillment by love ( Rom. 8:4; 13:8-10).
Christian legalism not only ignores the clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is not under law ( Rom. 6:14), but also ignores the equally clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is dead to the law.
“Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit to God.” (Rom. 7:4)
“For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.” (Gal 2:19)
Not only is the Christian dead to sin but he is also dead to the law. Through Christ’s death, the believer has died to sin and to the law, and now in the resurrected Christ he is alive to God.
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom. 7:6)
The Christian has passed from under the reign of death and sin unto reigning in life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:17). The law was the rule in the dispensation of death (II Cor. 3:6-7); the letter kills and the law condemns. The Holy Spirit is the rule of life in the new dispensation of life (II Cor. 3:17-18). Since the Spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6), the dispensation of life is the dispensation of the Spirit (II Cor. 3:8), the Era of the Spirit. Since the Christian has passed from death to life, he has passed from the rule of the law to the rule of the Spirit. The law as the rule of Christian life has no place in the Era of the Spirit. And if the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit, legalism as an idolatry and misunderstanding of the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit either.
True Christians (not nominal Christians, in name only) have the Holy Spirit. True Christians have accepted Christ and put their faith in Him and His death and resurrection. And as such they have received the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2). To be born again and to be alive to God is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does this by revealing Christ and convicting (convincing) the unsaved of their need for Christ (John 16:7-11); The Spirit presents Christ to the unbeliever in the preaching of the Gospel. To receive Christ is also to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8:9 to the believers at Rome,
“But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone have not the Spirit of Christ, this one is not his.” (Rom. 8:9)
To be “in the Spirit” is to be saved, and to be “in the flesh” is to be unsaved (Romans 7:5). But not everyone who has the Spirit dwelling in him is filled with Spirit; some are not “walking according to the Spirit”, but “according to the flesh” ( Romans 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25). And to walk according to the flesh is to attempt to live the Christian life by human effort alone apart from the Spirit of God; such ones attempt to live up to the divine standard in the law. They are under law and thus experience only defeat and frustration ( Rom. 6:14 ERS and Rom. 7:18-19 ERS). They are trying to do what only the Holy Spirit can enable them to do. To be under law is to walk according the flesh (by human effort). To walk according to the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit is not to be under law ( Gal. 5:18). Those who walk according the Spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be had apart from the Spirit; no human effort can produce that fruit. But those who walk according the Spirit fulfill the law without being under law.
“13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 13:9 The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Rom. 13:8-10).
The goal is not moral or sinless perfection (conforming to the divine standard in the law) but love: love of God and love of our neighbor. This goal can be reached only if one is filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18-20).
And a Christian is filled with the Spirit if he has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has been misunderstood as the second work of grace that eradicates the sinful nature. This is not what the phrase means in the New Testament. The phrase “to baptize with the Holy Spirit” was first used by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33) of Him who was to come after John, that is, the Christ or Messiah. Luke reports in Acts that the risen Jesus said,
“John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).
This is obviously a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost, of which Jesus also said,
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
This baptism with the Holy Spirit was an empowerment for service, to be His witnesses. Later, Peter refers to Pentecost as the baptism with the Spirit when he explains what happened at the conversion of Cornelius, the centurion:
“11:15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 11:16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 11:17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:15-17).
How did Peter recognize that Holy Spirit had fallen on them and the gift of the Spirit? Because the same thing happened to them that happened to Peter and the others at Pentecost, they spoke with other tongues or languages (Acts 2:4; 9:44-47). This sign of the baptism with the Spirit of Cornelius, and those with him, was also the sign to Peter, and those with him, that the Spirit was also given to the Gentiles. Luke also refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as being filled with the Spirit;
“2:3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3-4).
This coming of the Holy Spirit to them, which is the baptism with the Spirit, is the initial in-filling of the Spirit. Later they were again filled with Spirit (Acts 4:31). We believe that each believer, like these first believers, may be baptized with the Spirit as the initial in-filling of the Holy Spirit and may be refilled with the Spirit as the Spirit sees fit. Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). If anyone objects to the use of the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” to refer this initial filling of the Spirit, I will not quibble with him, as long as he recognizes that Christian believers should be filled with the Spirit and that there must be a first filling of the Spirit which may occur at conversion or later. Whether one speaks in tongues at this first filling of the Spirit, which one may do as the Spirit leads, is between him (or her) and the Spirit. But I will tell you that if anyone makes an issue with God of not speaking with tongues, he may not be filled the Spirit until he yields. This yielding to the Spirit is the necessary condition for being filled with Spirit. Paul makes it clear in his letter to Romans that presenting our bodies and its members to God is the logical implication of our acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and Savior (Rom. 6:13; 12:1-2); and that includes presenting or yielding one’s tongue. This does not mean that the Christian believer has become morally perfect or that he must clean up his life before he can be filled with the Spirit; the Holy Spirit will take care of cleaning up the believer’s life after he is filled with the Spirit.
One more point; speaking in tongues at the initial filling of the Spirit is not the gift of tongues of which Paul speaks in I Cor. chapters 12 to 14. While all believers may speak in tongues at the initial filling of Spirit, not all have the gift of tongues and the accompanying gift of interpretation of tongues. The Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as he wills (I Cor. 12:11). As Paul makes clear in I Cor. 12, the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of the Spirit in the body of Christ for the common good (I Cor. 12:7). The empowering of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit are to be concrete expressions of love for one another in the body of Christ and those outside. The preaching of Gospel should be accompanied by signs and wonders:
“2:3 It (the so great salvation) was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 2:4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will” (Heb. 2:3-4).
At the beginning of the twentieth century during the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was misunderstood to be the Holiness second work of grace that was believed to eradicate the sinful nature in the Christian. There were other Pentecostals that rejected this Holiness interpretation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit; they believed that the baptism of the Holy Spirit supressed or overcame the sinful nature so that believer who had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit could live a victorious Christian life – Spirit-empowered law-keeping.
Neither of these interpretations of the baptism of the Holy Spirit are Biblical; man in general and the Christian in particular does not have a sinful nature. Man sins because he is spiritually dead; “because of which [death] all sinned.” ( Rom. 5:12d ERS) – not because he has a sinful nature. And many Christians experience the lordship of sin when they are placed under law and are not under the grace of God ( Rom. 6:14 ERS). They sin, not because they have a sinful nature, but because they have been practically placed back into spiritual death.
Now since there is no sinful nature that causes the believer to sin, then the baptism of Holy Spirit is not the eradication or supression of the sinful nature. But since the Christian sins when he or she is put under law ( Rom. 6:14 ERS), the baptism of the Holy Spirit may also be a deliverance from being under law to being under grace.
God delivers believers from being under law through His word of unconditional love which says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ ( Rom. 8:1 ERS). This is a word of grace and places the Christian back under grace. Being under law conditions God’s love by our sins. God says that His love is unconditioned by our sins. Therefore, God does not condemn us for our failure under the law but delivers us from being under law and places us back under grace. For in His love, by His grace, God delivers us from the law of sin and of death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ ( Rom. 8:2 ERS) and thus from wrath which is condemnation ( Rom. 8:1 NAS).
This deliverance by the operation of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has been misinterpreted as an eradication of the sinful nature. But the law of sin and the law of death is not the sinful nature. The law of sin is the operation of sin as a slavemaster and the law of death is the operation of death which separates man from God. The law of death brings the man under law into captivity to the law of sin ( Rom. 7:23). That is, death leads to sin [“because of which [death] all sinned” ( Rom. 5:12d ERS). “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (I Cor. 15:55 ERS)].
No sinful nature is necessary to explain the Romans 7 experience; the man under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead; the law separates him from God. And since the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21), it therefore cannot produce righteousness. For the Christian to place himself under the law is the same as placing himself in spiritual death; it has the same results — sin. For the Christian under law, the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit; the law thus separates the Christian from God, and that is spiritual death.
Romans chapter 7 is not the normal Christian life; it is the struggle of the man under law, entrapped in the bondage of legalism, of being under law. And if the Christian falls into this legalism, there is deliverance.
“Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 7:25a).
This deliverance often takes place with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the initial infilling with the Spirit. And if the believer is in bondage under the law, then he or she will be set free from this bondage when they are filled with the Spirit. But since the Christian life is often misinterpreted as living by the law, then the spirit-filled believer is often placed back again under law. And then the believer sins, and some interpret these sins as the lost of salvation and the need to be saved again. Among some other, this fall into sin is interpreted as an expression of sinful nature of the believer who has yielded to his sinful nature rather than living according to his new nature. Both these teachings misunderstand the reason for the fall into sin and do not recognize that the cause of the sin is being under law ( Rom. 6:14 ERS).
Being under law does not mean that the law is the cause of sin. As Paul points out in Romans 7:7-12, the law is good but for the man under law, sin uses the law as an opportunity to become active. And this law of sin becomes active because of the law of death ( Rom. 7:23). The law of God is not the law of sin, but being under the law allows the law of sin to become operative. And the law of sin becomes operative because the being under law allows the law of death to become operative. For the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21), but brings death ( Rom. 7:10). Deliverance from the law of sin is by the deliverance from the law of death and deliverance from the law of death is by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2). Thus the law or power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or power of action of sin and the law or power of action of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ which is deliverance from death. The law is not able to do this; it is through the death of Christ ( Rom. 8:3) who put an end to sin’s reign over us (“condemn sin in the flesh”) by his death for us (II Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 6:10). The result ( Rom. 8:4) is that the righteous acts of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. To walk after the flesh is to try to do the righteous acts of the law by human effort (“the flesh”). The believer must not do it that way. Romans chapter 7 shows us the failure of this way. Only as we are delivered from being under the law (we died to the law in Christ’s death: Rom. 7:4) and are set free from the law of sin and from the law of death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2 NAS), do we experience the resurrection victory of Christ over sin and death. The Christian life is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping, but Spirit-filled law-fulfilling by love ( Rom. 8:4; 13:10); it is a joyful walk filled with the Spirit, trusting Him who loves us and gave Himself for us. And is a law necessary when we love and trust God? The law is for those who do not love and trust God — though it will not save them — the law cannot make them alive and it cannot produce righteousness ( Gal. 3:21), the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:5, 13). But if the believer by faith is walking according to the Spirit, he will fulfill the righteous acts of the law ( Rom. 8:4). He will love God with his heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself. And this walk in the Spirit is possible only by being filled with the Spirit.
In conclusion, the following statements will summarize our findings concerning the problem of salvation: Why does man need to be saved?
1. The origin of sin is twofold:
a. the historical origin of sin is the sin of Adam, the Fall of man,
b. the immediate, contemporary and personal origin of the sin for each of Adam’s descendants is the transmitted death from Adam to his descendants.
2. The analysis of human freedom shows that man must have a god as the ultimate criterion of his choices.
3. Because man is spiritually dead and does not personally know the true God as a living reality, he choses a substitute for the true God as his god. Man sins because he is spiritually dead ( Rom. 5:12d ERS).
4. Man has not lost his freedom to choose as the result of the Fall of man in the sin of Adam; man is able not to sin. But since he cannot make himself alive to God, he cannot save himself.
5. Salvation is basically and primarily from death, both spiritual and physical; salvation from death is man’s primary need.
6. Because salvation is basically and primarily from death, salvation from sin (trust in a false god, idolatry) is secondary and, since man sins because of death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), the result of salvation from death is salvation from sin.
7. Salvation is not something to be earned by meritorious works but is the gift of a personal relationship with the true God – spiritual life – to be received by faith.
8. Because the law cannot make alive (Gal. 3:21), salvation by meritorious works is in principle not possible and is non-biblical; man cannot earn salvation (Eph. 2:8-9).
9. The problem of original sin is a pseudo problem arising from a misunderstanding of the Biblical teaching concerning the origin of sin and the need for salvation. This misunderstanding arises from legalistic concept of salvation as something to be earned by meritorious works and a legalistic misinterpretation of Scripture, particularly of Rom. 5:12 and of Rom. 7:7-24.
10. The sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology to explain why man could not save himself by his meritorious works. Since man cannot save himself by his meritorious works even if he could do them (salvation is not something that can be earned by meritorious works but is a gift), the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary and unbiblical. The sinful nature is not taught in the Scriptures.
11. The sinful nature is not needed to explain the defeat of the man under law described in Romans 7:7-24. Sin has dominion over the man who is under law (Rom. 6:14) because being under law he is separated from the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and is in spiritual death (the law has taken the place of the Spirit) and he sins because he is in this spiritual death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS). The law of death makes him captive to the law of sin (Rom. 7:21-23).
12. There is deliverance from the Romans 7 experience (Rom. 7:25a) and the three steps of that deliverance is given Rom. 7:25b-8:4.
13. The “normal” Christian life is the walk according to the Spirit by faith and not a legalistic Spirit-empowered law-keeping; it is the Spirit-filled law-fulfillment by love (Rom. 8:4; 13:10).
To Continue, Click here.